A/N: hey guys! Lauren here. And along with me I bring you…the next chapter! Haha, I had a good time with this one…it's a little crazy, but you'll see. Yay! So read on, I hope you all like this one!
And thanks to all my reviewers, you have no idea what it means to me to that you got me past the 200-mark!! Thanks so much, keep up the reviewing!!
Disclaimer: JK, believe it or not, is my long-lost uncle's sister's husband's daughter's mother's monkey's attorney's best friend's gardener's fifth cousin (thrice removed, that is.). Bet y'all are impressed, huh? I know, I know, it makes me undeniably cool. Unfortunately, not cool enough to actually own any of these characters, but…yeah, undeniably cool.
Chapter Eleven
Stormy Weather
It was no surprise to anyone that Hermione didn't return to the common room that evening. Ron did feel a little bit remorseful for what he had said, but lately he had been having trouble controlling his frustration, and we all know what it's like to say things we don't mean as a result of speaking before thinking.
Hermione, on the other hand, wasn't remorseful at all, about anything. After slamming the door, she had sat on her bed and decided to clear her head of all emotion involving Ron. She wouldn't let herself be stressed by Ron and Padma's relationship, because really, how long could something that horrid last anyway? Hermione's guess? Three weeks. (It was a shame Fred and George weren't around to participate, she had the feeling she could have profited very much.) She also decided that, from now on, she wouldn't be bothered with her feelings for Ron, because, first of all, she didn't even know what those feelings were exactly. Secondly, it was just too much to deal with, what with her Head Girl duties, and her schoolwork, and the ever-approaching N.E.W.T.s. So really, there was nothing to be bothered with. It was time to just move on.
The next few days were, as Ginny knew they would be, very interesting. At first, Ron and Hermione decided to sort of ignore each other. But over time, Ron realized that nothing was changing. This was unlike any argument they had had before. Every previous argument usually followed specific guidelines:
First day: avoid each other as much as possible; no words exchanged.
Second day: avoid each other as much as before; polite (or possibly bitter) and minimal exchange of words.
Third day: not so much avoidance. Begin 'not minding' being around the person; Try breaking the tension with a few corny jokes and a bit of friendly banter.
Fourth day: realize what sorry dopes you are and attempt to apologize while keeping own ego intact. If possible, apologize while taking as little blame onto yourself.
Fifth day: forgiveness has begun. Slowly yet surely, things will be back to normal. Really.
Sixth day: head back into normal conversations. Grudges have generally been dropped by now, normal life can carry on.
Seventh day: oh, go on, give them a hug, (they deserve it), and pray that next time they'll be just as forgiving.
But by the fourth day, Ron realized that this time, there was no sign of any less avoidance. Hermione was practically everywhere in the castle except where Ron was. And if, by some miracle, they did cross paths, it seemed as though she looked straight through him. Ron was beginning to feel a tearing pain in the pit of his stomach. Was there any hope? Any hope at all?
Alas, if the human race was not so afflicted by the need to save face, you could have bet your bottom dollar that Ron would have tried to find out. But because Ron had every intention of saving face, he decided that he too would not be bothered by the situation. If Hermione didn't care to fix things, then he wouldn't either. In his opinion, it probably wasn't worth it anyway. (Yeah right, like he really thought that…)
Of course, Ginny and Harry knew that Ron was probably as much to blame as Hermione, but they were in no rush to point this out. This was their problem, and if they couldn't work it out, then…oh well. (Though both secretly hoped that one or both Ron and Hermione would come around at some point.)
Over the course of the next week, Ron found himself spending more quality time with Padma. Surprisingly, she wasn't really as annoying as he thought she was. For one thing, she was very helpful when it came to completing his homework assignments, even though they had no classes together. For another, she always knew exactly where he was supposed to be at any given time (on account of she spent an entire morning studying his schedule.) So whenever he lost track of time or forgot what class he had, all he had to do was ask Padma. It was really quite useful, he came to discover. Sort of like having a personal organizer, in a way.
As for Hermione…Hermione found herself…well, actually, she found herself quite happy. Happy, for the first time in a long time. "How long?" you ask? A long time. She wasn't quite sure how she had done it, but she had convinced herself that everything would be okay, even with Ron going out with that ugly, obnoxious, piece of snot, suck-up Ravenclaw…Oops, I mean…wonderful, polite girl from Ravenclaw. But still, Hermione held no grudges. Really. She wished Ron and Padma the best of luck and happiness. As for her, she had much better things to do with her time. Not only had she gotten to know Ginny even better than before, she had started talking to people she had never talked to before, becoming better friends and establishing better inter-house relationships with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. (We all know it's no use with Slytherin, so don't even ask.) She was getting more work done than ever, and she was enjoying it. Really. No lie.
Perhaps it was all of this that Ron found so irksome. Here he was, being led around like some puppy on a leash (that was held by his personal assistant/girlfriend/near stalker), while Hermione was working as hard as ever and enjoying it. The gilded splendor of having Padma as a girlfriend was starting to fade, and he was beginning to wonder if Hermione's façade of happiness was too. It wasn't that he didn't believe Hermione could be okay without him. In fact, that's what scared him. He didn't want Hermione to be okay without him, he wanted her to depend on him, because he knew inside that he depended on her. He wondered if she felt the same way, but he was afraid to learn the answer. If she indeed didn't feel the same, and it really wasn't a façade, then Ron was at a real loss. It was no fun having Padma do his homework; she never nagged at him or pushed him to do any of it himself. He never had to try with her, and though that was what made it fun at first, he was beginning to feel…an odd feeling of helplessness. He really had nothing to do, because Padma was all too willing to do it for him. It was Hermione who kept him going, who kept him on his toes, who motivated him. Or tried to, anyway. When it all came down to it, he needed Hermione's friendship…or did he need more than that?
Two weeks, three days and twenty-one hours into the silence, Ron found Hermione—where else?—in the library, searching through the aisles of shelves for a book on magic in 19th century Africa, for a paper Binns assigned them on Friday. (of course, it wasn't due for another two weeks, but…there's no need to explain this one.) He peeked around the corner, just to see that she was busy enough that she would be there for a while. After watching her for a few minutes, he smiled and calmly left the library, Hermione knowing nothing different.
Hermione did remain busy for quite some time, spending two hours starting (and nearly finishing) her paper. After realizing how tired she was, she packed up her bag and left the library, blearily heading down the halls and up the stairs until she made it to the common room. She muttered the password, walked through the portrait hole, and made her way up the stairs, looking down into the common room to see who was still awake. In a chair close to the fire lay Ron, just as she'd expected. She felt her eyes linger a little longer than she'd have liked, but she continued up the staircase and into her dorm. She set down her bag next to her bed and, obviously not looking where she was sitting, plopped down on her bed. Hearing a crunch as she sat down, she jumped up and removed a piece of parchment, unfolded it, and began to read.
Dear Hermione,
I know that you're probably wondering why you've found this on your bed. I was writing you because, well, we haven't really spoken in a while, and I miss being able to talk to you, and us being friends, and I was hoping that you and I could talk about our argument and sort it out maybe. If you want, you can find me in the common room, or we could talk tomorrow, or whenever you want, that is if you want to.
Ron
Hermione rolled up the parchment and set it on the table next to her, the stored mass of feelings she had been keeping back the past three weeks rushing suddenly over her like a tidal wave. First and foremost, she was glad. No matter how happy she had seemed before, somewhere in the back of her mind lived the nagging worry that maybe Ron hadn't been disappointed in losing Hermione and that maybe he would end up happily ever after with Padma after all. But now…now there was hope. Not more hope than she thought reasonable, of course, but still…hope.
Secondly, she couldn't help but feel that she had had some sort of victory. This time, she made sure that Ron was really sorry, and not just looking to 'make things fine' just to ease his conscious. This time, they had both had time to think, and they had both realized that it wasn't that easy being without each other. She sat back down on her bed and laid her head down on the pillow, sighing. As happy as she was, she was undeniably tired. She had seen him in the common room a few minutes earlier, so she knew he was still there. She'd rest her eyes for just a few minutes, and then she'd go see him…
^
A beam of light flashed across the room of the 7th year girls' dormitory, and Hermione sat up with a start. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, placed her feet on the soft carpeted floor, and stumbled toward the window, where she was surprised to see a full-blown thunderstorm, the thin sheet of glass being all that kept it from hitting her face. Staring wide-eyed, she looked across the grounds at something moving, but couldn't see what it was. She squinted her eyes tightly to possibly see better, and saw what she thought to be a mass of red hair. She immediately grabbed her cloak from the chair by her bed, noticing the clock on the table which was ticking right past three a.m. She slipped on her shoes while making sure to grab her Head Girl badge and headed down the stairs, admonishing herself for sleeping so long.
She rushed out through the portrait hole and down the halls faster and quieter than she ever thought she could, and within a couple of minutes she was in the entrance hall. She pulled open one of the doors and, stepping out onto the platform, swished her cloak over her shoulders, covering her white dressing gown, and fastened it around her neck. With a glance into the far stretches of grass that lay in front of her and the forbidden, haunted-looking forest that loomed behind it, she took a sharp, deep breath and stepped out into the perilous storm.
Trying to remember where she'd seen him, she pushed against the wind and tried to shield her face from the harsh rain. Holding onto a nearby tree, her eyes—protected by umbrage— searched her rough surroundings, looking for any sign of him, but finding nothing. She threw herself out into the rain again, pushing harder against the wind and about to break out into a run when she felt something slip from underneath her feet. The next thing she felt was the soft, squishy ground underneath her, and right above her flashed another beam of lightning. Hermione rolled over, got back on her feet, and leaned up against the next tree, catching her breath. No matter the elements, Hermione was determined to find him. She let her eyes roam the grounds again, and finally, suddenly, she saw him, near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. But it wasn't his hair that stood out for her to find him. His blue eyes burned into hers like fire; for some reason, he was staring right at her, as if he had been expecting her.
Hermione nearly jumped back a foot, she was so taken aback, but she could not stop herself from staring right back at him. Her feet began dragging her forward and she did not fight them. Closer and closer she was to him, and more intense became the stare between them. She no longer felt the wind pushing against her or the rain on her face; she was only aware of the blue eyes boring into her, bringing her closer. Soon enough she felt herself in his space, and without breaking eye contact, he lifted his hands and placed them softly around her jawline. Hermione felt a million questions running through her mind: what was he doing outside, in the middle of a storm, at three in the morning? Why was he looking at her like that? Had he been expecting her? If so, how did he know she would come? She couldn't focus on one, and so she couldn't ask anything. All she could do was watch. For even if she could have picked one thing to ask, she no longer had control over her actions. It was as if she was hypnotized, under Ron's control.
He kept looking at her, and had anyone else looked at her the same way, she would have been very afraid. But in this case, she was feeling the opposite; she had never felt so safe in her whole life. And finally, her mind settled down enough for her to speak comprehensibly.
"Ron, wh—what are you doing out here? It's…it's freezing, you could get sick, and it's nearly three-thirty in the morning! Did I mention that you could get sick? This is cra--"
But she never got to finish telling Ron how crazy and deranged it all was, because she suddenly felt a pair of surprisingly warm, soft lips press against hers, and every thought going through her mind dissolved into the rain as she closed her eyes. Her hands started trembling uncontrollably, so Ron moved his hands to place hers in his coat pockets. She gripped tightly onto his pocket lining as he deepened the kiss, and she felt a light tingling rush up her spine as—
—the covers were pulled off her body.
"Hermione, wake up!"
Hermione blinked wearily, her eyes being brutally beaten by a rogue ray of sun. She picked up her pillow and slammed it into the wise red head, who, instead of falling over backwards, caught it in her hands and yanked it forward, lifting Hermione from her dormant position. Hermione groaned as she reached for her clock.
"Ten in the morning? What am I doing in bed at ten in the morning? Ginny, I'm so late, Snape's going to kill me--"
"Hermione, calm down, Snape's not gonna kill you," Ginny said, keeping firm pressure on Hermione's shoulder's to keep her down. She reached over for the clock and stuck it in Hermione's face.
"You must have looked at the clock sideways, because it's only 7:45," she said, as if it were completely obvious. Hermione blinked at her like a deer in headlights, which caused Ginny to burst out in laughter.
"Herm, it's all right, really, just uh, just get dressed and we'll go down to breakfast, all right?" she said, holding back more laughter as Hermione glared at her. She stood up and walked over to her trunk, pulled out a uniform, and retreated to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she returned, and Ginny noticed the dazed look on her face as the descended the stairs.
"Hermione, are you all right? You look a little, well, disoriented or something. Did you have a weird dream or something?"
"Yeah, that's it. I just had this crazy dream, that's all…"
But if it had been just a dream, why did it seem so real? And was that a cold she felt coming on? She wondered this as they entered the common room. Harry was standing by a chair when they entered, and he walked over with a smile.
"Morning, Harry," Ginny said, putting her hand on his head and disheveled his hair. Harry chuckled as he did the same, causing Ginny to duck and squeal.
"Er, Harry, where's Ron?" she asked, noticing his absence. Harry ceased his chase and stood up.
"He's still upstairs, he said he didn't feel too well today, like he's got a cold or something. I told him to go see Pomfrey, but of course he refused, so I figured we could check on him at lunch, see if we can't drag him over there maybe."
While walking down the stairs, the three noticed signs posted on the walls. Moving closer to see better, Harry read aloud to the girls.
Notice to all Hogwarts students:
Due to severe rain and lightning damage, all outside classes will be canceled today, during which time your house prefects may instruct you.
Deputy Headmistress McGonagall
"'Rain and lightning damage'? When was there rain? Was there a storm or something?" asked Lavender, who was a few steps behind them. Hermione spun around. A storm??
Hmm…bet you all are wondering what really happened, aren't you? Well…you'll have to review to find out! Review, please! The fate of Ron and Hermione depend on it! REVIEW!!
